unixman_again

I refuse to pay my council tax by standing order. Rather than running their own standing order system, they outsourced it to another council in Sale, who take a cut of each transaction for the privilege of handing Sandwell's direct debits. I send the council a cheque each month. Doesn't cost me in postage either, as the council office is next door to the supermarket where I do my weekly shop, and I put it in the letterbox.

I paid my road tax online the other day and it set me thinking about this thread and how back in the heyday of cheques you could use them to your advantage to save money. Well in Australia anyway. I never tried it here. When I used to pay the equivalent of road tax in Australia, if you wrote the cheque for $5 less than the amount owed, they wouldn't worry about the different. I guess $5 in $157.50 wasn't worth the effort. After a few years of this, one year they returned my cheque with a letter saying I hadn't paid enough. I paid in full, but the next year I wrote the cheque for $3 less and they accepted it, and they continued to accept it every year until I left in 1993. You could do the same with other government departments too. Damn online payments! The computer won't accept anything other than the amount shown

For years, we've been trying to convince SMT to replace an entire block of projectors at once, beit with giant interactive TVs (our choice) or projectors. They still insist on piecemeal replacement, which means we have 10 different models of projector, so we need 10 different lamps. We have a couple of blocks with short throw Hitachis, which you would think would be a blessing, seeing as they are all the same make. We ran into problems recently ordering a lamp. It came but it wouldn't fit. For some reason, some of the projectors has round pins on the lamp, but most of them have flat pins. From what we can tell, the lamps are identical apart from the pins.

I think this is a function of bing not edge. You get the same result if you search for firefox and chrome at Bing. Opera gives a slightly different result, and M$ apparently haven't heard of vivaldi, as you get no recommendation. So vivaldi it is then

Still here. We can go at 16:00 although we have been "invited" for coffee in the staff room at 15:00; we would all rather go home.

It only comes back when they remember to turn it on in the first place. Once again today, they forgot!

Anybody who drives will already know this. One thing I've never understood about these cars; you spend all that money and the indicators don't work... https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/worst-drivers-uk-been-revealed-15570111

Land of the Giants has recently been shown on the Horror Channel, as has Lost In Space.

we have https://www.medial.com/ which will do all that you want and more

What does Donald Trump do after he pulls a cracker? Pays her off Why is Theresa May encouraging board games at Christmas? Because she’s trying to bring back Chequers Why has Debenhams been forced to cancel its Christmas nativity play? No prophet What does Philip Green buy former employees for Christmas? Their silence When do sheep practice their new dance? While shepherds watched them floss by night What’s the difference between the Love Island villa and the stable where Jesus was born? The stable has had some wise men in it Why does Kim Kardashian hate Christmas so much? She’s always the butt of the Christmas cracker jokes What is Meghan buying Harry, William and Charles for Christmas? Suits Why was everyone hungover after Roxanne Pallett’s Christmas Party? She misjudged the strength of the punch Why did Donald Trump invite Kanye West round to help with his Christmas presents? Because Kanye is Trump’s favourite wrapper What’s the biggest complaint about Network Rail’s Christmas seasoning? They keep changing the thyme Why has Boris Johnson bought mistletoe this year? Because he’s tired of being in the single market What’s the only thing that goes on longer than Christmas? Harry and Meghan’s wedding preacher What did Banksy serve with his Christmas turkey? Shred sauce Who won the North Pole Love Island? Dani Deer Source: https://www.thepoke.co.uk/2018/12/11/donald-trump-tops-modern-christmas-cracker-jokes-competition-not-fake-news/

It cost £9 at the local arts centre the other day. I don't know if that is the usual price. I don't go to the pictures that often. I guess it's like everything, prices rise. When I started seeing bands in the 1970s, you'd say to yourself "Should I see the band or buy the LP". Now it's "Should I see the band or buy their entire back catalogue on remastered audiophile disks, and on CDs and on download and all of the band members books too".

Suspiria - not a patch on the original. Too much padding and the Red Army Faction side plot was completely irrelevant.

Not necessarily. A couple of years ago they stretched the platforms on some of the Black Country stations without closing the stations. I have no idea why, as we didn't get longer trains. It might be something to do with HS2, although I doubt it. IMO the only real answer to the woes on the network, is to fully automate it.

We've got six similar sized touch screens and while teacher are wowed with what they can do, they haven't progressed beyond a quick play. They do use them daily, but basically as a replacement for their old interactive whiteboard, and most didn't even bother with the interactive features of that. So basically, we've gone from an expensive projector screen, to a more expensive projector screen, albeit with a far superior picture. I've spoken to the teachers who have them and they are keen to do more, but they say they have powerpoints built up over many years, and they don't want to abandon them (not that we are suggesting they are). Another factor stopping teachers getting more use out of them is the software that runs on the PC with ours - it lets you write on the board in the same way as an iwb. We had licences to run iwb on as many PCs as we wanted, and a few teachers would prepare lessons using it, in their office. With the touch screens, we only have licences for the PCs where the screen is connected, and even if we could load it on an office PC, it is difficult to drive without a touch screen.

Any recommendations? I want one that I can use for internet transactions, so I can chuck on the amount that I want to spend, without exposing my bank account. I had one with WeSwap, but it didn't work on US web sites.

The word of the year for 2018 is misinformation (Just how many words of the year are there?)

I've replied to your PM Jess - they are yours.

Grey with an orange band and orange button

I don't know much about Prometheans, but if you ask specific questions I'll try to answer 1 x flat ended cable to 3.5mm jack (from a PRM-AB2-01) 2 x wall boxes (one is on a wall mounted beam but it can be removed) 4 x long USB A to B 2 x pens 1 x ACTIVslateXR

Paper cheques didn’t finally disappear last month, as hoped in 2009 https://spectrum.ieee.org/riskfactor/computing/it/personal-cheques-still-alive-and-well-in-the-uk-in-2018 Jolly good too that they didn't disappear. I write two monthly, one to piss off my local council and the other to the agent who handles my rent; they only accept cash or cheques.

Perhaps you can adapt this https://github.com/leblancfg/autocrop We've used it to autocrop our student photos and it does a pretty good job, provided the background isn't too busy. I have absolutely no idea how the face recognition works, but it does.

Found by a friend, not me.

Most ministers have no clue about what their department does before they are put in charge. Most have no clue when they are in charge either.

Toxic is the latest word of the year. Also on the list as incel, cakeism, techlash and orbiting which I haven't heard of. https://metro.co.uk/2018/11/15/word-of-the-year-2018-basically-sums-up-the-mood-of-2018-8141341/